Electric “Microkart” Has Tons of Kick

When you’re building an electric go kart, you really have two options. Convert a normal gasoline powered one by swapping out the power plant… Or build it from scratch! [Ganharr] opted for the for the latter to save some money, and to design it just the way he wanted.

Now you may have noticed it looks a bit small — because it is. It’s really more of a Micro-Kart, but that’s okay because [Ganharr] is winning a father-of-the-year award for building it for his kid!

It features two 2kW (~3HP) brushless electric motors, which independently drive the rear wheels. These are powered by two 48V 50A continuous (100A peak) speed controllers.[Ganharr] also spared no expense on the batteries, opting for a 48V lithium-ion pack composed of Headway cells (3.2V 15aH capacity each, 40152 type).

Having spent over $1000 of his $1500 budget on batteries and motors, [Ganharr] opted to keep it simple for the frame and drive train. Wood, wagon wheels and some other basic components make up the rest of the vehicle, but holy cow does it work well!

Nice!!
Now get a seat-belt or harness on that sucker, you can’t steer one as well if you’re using the steering wheel as a grab bar.
because your tush is sliding out of the seat.
Then the long, unsupported steering column could use a brace.
Come on, the kid’s gonna figure out powersliding pretty soon
judging from the looks of that riding area.
And We all want to see this thing hold up to kid play, Right ?!
If the Dad was my neighbor, I’d offer to band the frame with either some strong plastic, perhaps cut from a plastic barrel.
The wheel openings are a Major snag point on any cart and go-karts just seem almost cursed to get hung when you’re having fun.

Hope to see any upgrades or motor or controller revisions as the kid gets better at driving.

tbjr6, Yeah I hear ya (i’m quite guilty of non-helmeted ATV riding). I’m just slack/lazy and gambled that the anti-pressurized-PVC
crowd vs the life’s best with some risk crowd (me included) would get here and cover all of the rest of it. ha ha X^P

I’ve been thinking about this some months ago, but instead i would run only one motor with a bycicle gear system, and would try to make a better chassis, maybe?? with shocks. The point would be the runtime (mileage) at a decent speed.. Maybe when i got some free time.